Public Capacity, Plural Forms of Collaboration, and the Performance of Public Initiatives: A Configurational Approach

Abstract

We assess conditions that explain plural forms of public and private action using a comparative study of 24 public initiatives in Brazil, India, and South Africa. Measuring performance as evidence of positive outcomes to their target populations, we compare cases of high and low performance. Our configurational approach examines combinations of conditions leading to positive outcomes: public operational capacity, diverse collaborations nurtured by public units (with for-profit firms, with nonprofit organizations, and with other units in the public bureaucracy), and stakeholder orientation (permeability to multiple sources of input to design and adjust the project). We apply fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis to unveil configurations consistent with high performance. Our configurational analysis reveals two distinct paths to high performance. A path with higher private engagement involves concurrent collaborations with for-profit and nonprofit actors, whereas an alternative path with higher internal (public) engagement relies on collaborations within the public bureaucracy complemented by high permeability to inputs from multiple stakeholders. Our results also confirm that strong public capacity is necessary in all high-performance configurations. An important implication is that externalization and multiple forms of collaboration are not substitutes for weak governments. Furthermore, our configurational perspective contributes to the literature by operationalizing a multiple-actor, multiple-logic perspective describing alternative paths to high performance.

South Korean social enterprises and their networks: On their organizational linkages at the interstice between the third, public, and corporate sectors

“…This enables social innovation through networking or engagement, either in a cooperative or competitive sense, with other social enterprises, companies, funding intermediaries, consumers, universities and research organizations, nonprofits and nongovernmental organizations, support organizations, and the government (see Tanimoto and Doi 2007). Central government efforts to overcome complex, "wicked" social problems tend to envision collaborative networks that include local governments and organizations such as for-profit businesses and third-sector organizations due to the failure of the state, the market, or single organizations to fill social welfare shortfalls or address existing or emergent social problems (Head 2019;Johansson et al 2015;Lazzarini et al 2020). Pluralism, networks, and multi-level and multi-actor governance approaches have thus assumed ascendancy contra traditional hierarchical arrangements or siloed approaches (Bryson et al 2006;Conteh 2013;Keast et al 2004;Suárez and Esparza 2017).…”

Inovação e colaboração governamental para recuperar veículos roubados e furtados

“…Entende-se colaboração como uma forma de interação entre organizações (Poocharoen & Ting, 2015), ainda que parte dos autores requeiram para tanto a tomada de decisão conjunta entre as partes (omson, Perry, & Miller, 2009) enquanto outros autores reconhecem a possibilidade, sobretudo entre agências governamentais, de uma colaboração imposta ou determinada por regulamento (Hafer, 2018). Colaborações entre órgãos públicos podem ser caminhos para a alta performance de governos (Lazzarini, Pongeluppe, Ito, Oliveira, & Ovanessoff, 2020). Dodgson (2014) afirma que colaboração é uma condição necessária para a inovação.…”

Boundary-Crossing Strategies: Managing Macro Policies in a Federal Government

“…The new movement in public management has different names -'joined-up government,' 'whole of government,' 'collaborative governance,' and so on -but similar goals and principles, which involve thinking from a boundary-crossing perspective instead of focusing on single-purpose organizations to deal with public sector issues. The strategies, in general, emphasize strengthening a government's capacity of coordination, integrated control, and holistic actions toward the improvement of decisionmaking and policy implementation and delivery (Lazzarini et al, 2020;Lodge & Gill, 2011;O'Flynn et al, 2013).…”

“…During recent decades, the public sector has experienced the emergence of new strategies to cross boundaries, aiming to improve performance in different ways (Lazzarini, Pongeluppe, Ito, Oliveira, & Ovanessoff, 2020). Focusing on an integrated view of policymaking as well as strengthening coordination and control mechanisms, these management strategies reflect the opposite view of the original New Public Management (NPM) approach by highlighting the need for reintegration and needs-based holism.…”

“…Moreover, the concepts of 'joined-up government,' 'whole-of-government,' 'holistic governance,' 'interactive governance,' and so on, have been implemented to address the 'wicked problems' that challenge the boundaries of public sector organizations, administrative levels, and policy areas (Elston et al, 2018;Ingold, 2018;Lazzarini et al, 2020). The notion of working across boundaries involves inter-organizational, inter-jurisdictional, and inter-sectoral activities, which demand a focus on relational capacity originating from the center of government, and on new ways of policy coordination, including instruments, mechanisms, and decision arenas to address complex problems in administrative settings of multiple state and non-state actors (Elston et al, 2018;Faling, Biesbroek, Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen, & Termeer, 2019;Ingold, 2018;Lazzarini et al, 2020;Meerkerk & Edelenbos, 2018).…”